Inset: Jared Krysiak (Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office). Background: Police investigate a murder in a home in Toms River, New Jersey (WPVI/YouTube).
A man from New Jersey was given an eight-year prison sentence by a judge on Friday for the gruesome act of dismembering a murder victim and disposing of the remains in black trash bags.
Jared Krysiak, aged 34, admitted his guilt to desecrating human remains in December, as disclosed by the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office in a statement. The incident took place in a Toms River residence where Krysiak was present with Maxwell Johnston, 35, who was being sought for the murder of his girlfriend in Manchester a week earlier. On July 3, authorities arrived at the property, resulting in Krysiak, Danielle Bolstad, 42, and Jared Palumbo, 36, surrendering, while Johnston and Elizabeth Mascarelli, 29, remained inside. After a stand-off, Mascarelli emerged injured. A drone later revealed that Johnston had taken his own life. Inside the house, law enforcement discovered a .22 caliber handgun and a 9mm handgun.
During the search of the residence, investigators uncovered evidence of a murder that transpired on July 3. They also found out that the victim, Kerry Rollason, aged 56, had potentially been relocated from the scene.
Mascarelli, a mother of a 5-year-old, was originally charged with murder for the slaying, which she committed after conspiring with Johnson, according to prosecutors. After killing Rollason, Mascarelli, Krysiak and the others in the home dismembered his body and dumped the body parts at the Jackson Township property, which is about 20 miles north of the quiet town of Toms River. Cops discovered Rollason’s body on July 12; he had been shot multiple times and beaten to death.
According to a courtroom report from the Asbury Park Press, Krysiak denied cutting up any body parts but admitted to using a pry bar to separate the body’s joints as his co-defendant’s dismembered Rollason. He also admitted to help move the body parts to the Jackson Township property and burned them in a barrel. In addition, Krysiak said he cleaned up the victim’s blood and his own vomit.
Krysiak’s attorney Danny Ljunberg tried to point out the mitigating factor that his client likely would not find himself in a similar position in the future. But Superior Court Judge Guy P. Ryan was having none of that.
“How am I supposed to find that?” the judge reportedly said. “That he’s not around a body that can be cut up and may be pried apart? One would hope he’s not in those circumstances.”
Assistant Ocean County Prosecutor Julie Peterson told the judge that Krysiak’s actions fits the desecration of a body charge to the letter.
“When you talk about desecration, this is really the truest form of desecration of a human body that I can think of,” Peterson reportedly stated. “It’s an absolute degradation really, of a corpse. The person was chopped into pieces and moved from one township to another. It’s truly unconscionable.”
As Law&Crime previously reported, Mascarelli pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter and was sentenced last month to 25 years in prison.
“Frankly, the facts are the plot of a horror movie,” Peterson said at Mascarelli’s sentencing, according to the Asbury Park Press. “One has to suspend themselves from reality to accept that something so gruesome, so horrific, inhumane, could happen right here in Toms River, in Ocean County, New Jersey.”
During the investigation, Mascarelli told cops that Johnson was pulling her strings and threatening to kill Rollason, which she originally claimed he did. Mascarelli said the wanted murderer was terrorizing everyone in the house and “by all accounts, carried a firearm at all times, brandishing it often,” according to Mascarelli’s lawyer, Glenn Kassman, who spoke at her sentencing.
Johnson was “suspicious and paranoid of everyone and everything,” Kassman said, even attacking pillows with knives at times. He and Mascarelli both consumed and dealt drugs while living together and were caught on video engaging in sexual acts, according to prosecutors.
“Licking and kissing the gun that he was using to open fire,” Peterson said.
“Her character is demonstrated by choosing to harbor an individual who was known to be wanted for murder, by choosing to shoot Kerry Rollason, the person who was allowing her to stay in the house, and then leave his body on the basement floor to take a break and grab a quick bite to eat at McDonald’s with her codefendants, and come back and mutilate his body like an animal carcass at the butcher,” Peterson said.
On Jan. 13, Bolstad also pleaded guilty to desecration of human remains while Palumbo pleaded guilty to hindering apprehension. They are set to be sentenced on March 14.
